Since arriving at Tennessee, redshirt freshman guard Jesse Perry has gained 50 pounds, while true freshman tackle David Sanders Jr. has packed on nearly 40.
Redshirt freshman tackle Bennett Warren had to go in the opposite direction.
“I’ve lost about 35 since I got here,” Warren said earlier this week in a news conference, “so I’m sitting at about 320.”
At 6-foot-7, Warren would be the tallest member of the Volunteers were it not for fellow redshirt freshman tackle Jeremias Heard, who stands 6-8 and 333 pounds. Warren was listed last season at 342 pounds, which made him the second biggest player on the roster behind former tackle Larry Johnson III, who checked in at 6-7 and 348.
The slimmed-down Warren has been staying busy so far in preseason camp, working behind both Sanders and junior Lance Heard.
“I’ve been trying to play both the left and right, so it’s a lot of learning and focusing on technique, technique, technique,” Warren said. “I feel like I’ve come a long way from when I first got here, and I feel like I can move a lot better. It’s been a grind, though.
“I don’t know that I can say I’ve got it all down, but I feel a lot less tense out there. I feel like I can come off the ball and that I know my alignment assignment and can get it done much better.”
Warren was the nation’s No. 7 tackle prospect and the No. 80 overall recruit in the 2024 signing class, according to 247Sports.com, starring at Fort Bend Christian Academy in the Houston suburb of Sugar Land.
He played in five games as a Tennessee freshman, logging a season-high 17 snaps at left tackle in the season-opening win over the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and playing 15 more at right tackle two weeks later against Kent State. Warren played 40 total offensive snaps and did not allow a pressure or commit a penalty, and his fifth appearance came in the College Football Playoff at Ohio State as a member of the kick unit.
“I’m trying to be the best I can right now,” Warren said. “Hopefully that helps me help everybody on our team. That’s my goal.”
McCoy returns
Junior cornerback Jermod McCoy, who tore his anterior cruciate ligmanent in January, performed some coverage drills during the portion of Friday morning’s practice that was open to the media.
McCoy was Tennessee’s only first-team representative on the league’s preseason team at SEC media days last month in Atlanta.
“There is no timetable on him,” Vols head coach Josh Heupel said of McCoy before the first preseason practice. “There are benchmark things that he’s got to accomplish within our training room to move on to the next phase of it. He’s handled it really well from the very beginning, just his mindset and how he’s approached every single day.
“As we go through training camp, there will be progression. How his body responds to some of those things will kind of dictate the time period of when he’s available for us.”
There was no media availability after Friday’s practice, but Heupel could update McCoy’s progress following Saturday morning’s first preseason scrimmage inside Neyland Stadium.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.